Christchurch New Zealand Quaking Again

Just off the coast of Christchurch New Zealand, several moderate earthquakes shook within minutes of each other including the strongest quake to ring the planet in at least a week.

First, a magnitude 5.8. Eight minutes later, a magnitude 5.3. Twenty four minutes later, a magnitude 4.2. At this point the magnitudes were diminishing somewhat. However, forty-eight minutes later, the strongest yet, a magnitude 5.9. It’s not over yet… an hour and a half later, a magnitude 4.8. Hopefully that’s it, as of this post time.

Hopefully those in Christchurch who suffered through the devastating 7.0 earthquake in September 2010, are prepared for another possible upset. Lets hope this recent group of quakes goes to rest. However when moderate quakes occur in such short time, separated by distances of 5 to 10 kilometers, it appears as though stresses are cracking all over that region rather than at just one location exhibiting a shock, and then aftershocks, etc.

Something’s up… or should I say, ‘down’. Plus, a new moon in a couple of days?

One Response

Hi, from up here in Canada. I live in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (Vancouver Island, BC, Canada). We have earthquake awareness here. I always did the 3-day preparedness thing, then after the Japan earthquake earlier this year as I was researching more about preparedness I came across the prepper culture, and now I am one! Here’s a little bit about our own situation, taken from the Earthquakes Canada website:

“West of Vancouver Island, and extending from the north tip of the Island to northern California, the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate is moving towards North America at about 2-5 cm/year. This region is called the Cascadia subduction zone. Here, the much smaller Juan de Fuca plate is sliding (subducting) beneath the continent (it is about 45 km beneath Victoria, and about 70 km beneath Vancouver). The ocean plate is not always moving though. There is good evidence that the Juan de Fuca and North America plates are currently locked together, causing strain to build up in the earth’s crust. It is this squeezing of the crust that causes the 300 or so small earthquakes that are located in southwestern British Columbia each year, and the less-frequent (once per decade, on average, damaging crustal earthquakes (e.g., a magnitude 7.3 earthquake on central Vancouver Island in 1946). At some time in the future, these plates will snap loose, generating a huge offshore “subduction” earthquake – one similar to the 1964 M=9.2 Alaska earthquake, or the 1960 M=9.5 Chile earthquake. Current crustal deformation measurements in this area provide evidence for this model. Geological evidence also indicates that huge subduction earthquakes have struck this coast every 300-800 years.”